"Care to make a pit stop?" Xigbar tilts his head toward the local coffee place, brain feeling sluggish.

Axel turns his head sharply from the passing sun, surf, and sand, their scent strong in the old, open convertible, following Xigbar's following his gesture with a frown. "You've been spending too much time with Demyx."

"Eh, maybe." Xigbar lifts a shoulder, contemplating his growing fondness for increasingly difficult to pronounce caffeinated beverages. Definitely the Energizer Bunny incarnate that is his boyfriend's doing.

"We don't have time to frighten the baristas this morning, buddy."

Xigbar tends to have that effect on people. His brawny build alone would probably do it. Add to that the eye patch, the messy scar splitting one cheek diagonally, the black ink lacing his upper body, the small gold hoops stinging the helix of one ear, and you get some unwanted comments.

'B-list movie villain' is his current favorite. At the beach, he and Axel have been mistaken for off-set Pirates of the Caribbean extras more than once.

"Rain check?" Axel proposes, smoothing back spikes of red, untamed this morning and loosened by the wind. He seems to have taken the lack of response as irritation.

The concept of 'no coffee' starts to sink in and the real irritation rises, as Xigbar maneuvers back out of his turn lane. "Ain't you always telling me that Marly don't give a damn when you come in? Or if you come in?"

God knows Marly only gave Axel the job to humor his good buddy Saïx and prefers Axel make himself scarce when not needed so as not to scare off the clientele. 'Course, fact that Axel actually knows what he's doing can't have escaped his notice by this point. Probably lets him get away with shit so he won't up and quit next time he and Saïx break up again.

Axel smirks. "Trust me, he doesn't." The smile falters, eyes returning to the road, ensuring Xigbar doesn't try and pull another extraneous detour. "I just need to make sure Vanitas hasn't broken Roxas yet."

Xigbar groans, flicking on the radio. "So help me God, if I hear one more fucking word about Roxas…"

News casters prattle too fast and low to understand.

Manicured red brows pinch closer together. Axel shifts the station to something louder with a steady beat and an irritating electric guitar, its words no less distinguishable at the low volume. "What do you know about Roxas?"

"Everything," Xigbar grumbles and his hand spreads across the dash. "The fuck did I just say?"

Axel offers an indifferent shrug, and Xigbar realizes Axel has no way of knowing what Xigbar's been through in the past twenty-four hours.

Xigbar picks up a more neutral tone as he shifts to a halt at another red light, and the wind combs calmingly through the strands of his ponytail. "Demyx comes over, right? And, you know Demyx tells me everything. 'Shut up and kiss me' is not in the guy's vocabulary. Whatever's on his mind comes right out his mouth. He watches a documentary on Animal Planet, and now I know more about seahorses getting it on than the Good Lord ever intended.

"And yesterday it was Roxas, Roxas, Roxas." Xigbar tilts his head back and forth in emphasis, his voice picking up a higher register in mimicry of his boyfriend, the tenor, "Roxas could be the sixth member of One Direction. Roxas is cuter than a baby kitten. Roxas has the voice of a siren and is sweet as a slice of strawberry shortcake with cream… And if Demyx doesn't get him to join The Organization, he'll just die." His cutesy Demyx voice falls off abruptly as Axel reigns in snorts of laughter. "Do you get me?"

"No, not yet," Axel replies, straight-faced again, "please, keep going. I'm sure you missed some lines about the glitter of Roxas' smile."

"Okay, first of all," Xigbar ticks off on a particular finger, "fuck you, I will leave you on the side of the road." Xigbar gives a pointed stare until Axel's shoulders' slump sheepishly into the leather seat, and he shuts it.

"Second, just take care of it, alright?" another finger flicks up and motions between Axel and the radio, "I mean, be careful, obviously, not like Sai needs any real ammunition, but."

Axel has that tone like he doesn't like Xigbar's. "I'm sorry?"

Xigbar doesn't respond for a long minute as he gets a lane over to avoid an oncoming shock of blue and red lights. "Get little Roxy in the band," he repeats slower and yet less patient, "so I don't have to hear Dem bitch about it anymore."

Demyx'd be on cloud nine, and Xigbar does everything he can to be on the receiving end of that mood as often as he can. Probably spoiling the kid. Well. Definitely spoiling the kid, but, hey…

"Sounds like Dem has that covered," Axel responds, brows rising in silent query.

Xigbar leans an arm on the window ledge and scowls. Boy can be kind of dense sometimes. "Yeah, but if you ask, it's a done deal."

"Why if I ask?" He's done fantasizing out the window now, eyes narrowing in that razor-edged way that reminds Xigbar how exactly Axel deals with Saïx day in and day out.

Xigbar snorts. "What, Sai take all the mirrors out of your house?" His head shakes. He sneers a bit. "As if you don't know."

"Saïx would sooner live without water." Axel's lip curls upward. "And I don't know."

"Huh." Xigbar watches his expression for a second, waiting for a telling twitch, and finding it, turning eyes back to the road, tone only lightly mocking, "Right, okay, my bad."

Axel scoffs, a light puff of air. "Roxas isn't going to say yes to whatever I ask just because I'm wearing sexy pants, Xigbar."

Xigbar's brows go up and stay there, fingers tapping at the edge of the steering wheel. "Then he's a stronger man than the rest of us."

Axel presses fingertips to Xigbar's cheek and turns his head back to the road. "Just drive, Xigbar."

Demyx had said something was up with Axel and Roxas, and this reaction makes Xigbar wonder if his sometimes clueless boy toy isn't on to something.

"Huh." Xigbar mumbles, tongue poking toward the fingertips still holding his jaw in place.

The hand yanks back but the word slices the air rushing past them. "Drive."

"Sure, baby," Xigbar soothes, dragging out another slow, gleaming grin that would make Saïx want to pop him in the jaw. His tongue curls in recoil at the thought. "Anything you want."

Axel's arms cross indignantly at that, but Axel smirks back anyway.